Eroticism emerged alongside cinema itself. Early films such as The Kiss and After the Ball turned the kiss and the female body into sources of both shock and fascination.

In the 1920s and 1930s, European cinema boldly explored forbidden desires, including homosexuality (Different from the Others, Girls in Uniform, Ecstasy). In Hollywood, meanwhile, the Hays Code forced filmmakers to express sexuality through suggestion, metaphor and subtext.

The sexual revolution of the 1960s changed everything. By the 1970s, eroticism had entered mainstream culture, blurring the boundaries between erotic cinema and pornography. Emmanuelle became the defining symbol of the era. But the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s shattered this atmosphere of carefree liberation. By the 1990s, desire had increasingly become a struggle for power, a source of manipulation and danger (Basic Instinct, Romance X).

Today, cinema faces a new paradox: explicit sexuality is giving way to psychological depth. Eroticism becomes a language of intimacy, empathy and hidden desires. The gaze of the camera is shifting too: increasingly, it is the male rather than the female body that becomes the object of desire.

Films mentioned in the lecture:

The Kiss (1896)
After the Ball (1897)
Different from the Others (1919)
Mädchen in Uniform (1931)
Ecstasy (1933)
Crime Without Passion (1934)
Spellbound (1945)
And God Created Woman (1956)
Some Like It Hot (1959)
Emmanuelle (1974)
The Key (1983)
Basic Instinct (1992)
Sense8 (2015, Netflix)